Band of brothers

The only thread that I found was an OST one so don't go olding me. Anyway I got the DVD set for my birthday a couple of weeks ago and only got around to watching it now and it is amazing. I can't believe the money HBO must have spent to make it look like it did. It is (purely from a visual point of view) better than anything I've seen on TV.

The story, characters so far are pretty decent. Episode 2 really reminded me about a very similar level in Call of duty 1. Episode 3 was unbelievably brutal (think the Omaha beach landing in Saving private Ryan done in a French village). Going to watch episode 4 tonight.

As much as I love the series so far I have to ask how good is the book? Worth reading? Is it as good or is it dumbed down patriotic garbage ala Clancy?

Book is Ok but BoB is one of those funny series/films that is far better than the book.

Biggest amount ever spent on a series (at least at the time, something might have beaten it by now) which is why it looks so damn cool. Fav ep for me is Crossroads, which was directed by Hanks, just superb...

I love this series and have a claim to fame that I am currently living on the very ground where most of it was filmed.

I think that HBO's new show Rome is now the most expensive TV show ever made but seem to remember that when it was first on TV they said that the D-day episode had more explosions than the whole of Saving Private Ryan.

The book for BoB and several of his others are good but they weren't meaty enough for me. They skimmed bits i wanted to have more detail but they are definately worth a read. I agree though that the series was a brilliant piece of work and even David Swi/Scwi/Ross from Friends didn't spoil it.

Really good show.

The game was good until you realised that tactically it was a bit repetitive and that your hard-as-nails trooper couldn't climb over a kerb or a brick in the middle of the road thereby forcing you to go through a sniper infected field.

bauhaus, I read BoB and the blue covered Air Force book and didn't want to read any of his others if they were the same. I'll have to look for D-Day and Citizen Soldier if you say they're the really good ones. Ta.

Not much of that at all. Ambrose does a pretty good job of pointing out just as many military failures as he does successes. He writes more about the fact that most of the men there went to make a difference and ended up fighting for the man next to him rather than for a flag.

Both Citizen soldiers and D-Day are excellent reads, pretty biased towards American deeds but for British involvement you could always read Pegasus Bridge.

One of his main thrusts throughout Citizen Soldiers, a theme he returns to over and over again, is that the US soldier was better than anything the Germans pitched against them

Sadly not true.

He does drops the point that the Riechs best was probably facing East not West by that stage of the war, and the allies pwned the air too, thus knackering the germans ability to move and function during the day.

Considering these facts, the boys in grey did a stirling job. Had Rommel got a free hand in Normandy then the fight for Europe could have been a lot worse and slower than it was.

Sucram wrote:
I just started watching this. As they showed the map of France I couldn't help but hear the mission briefing voice from Company of Heroes.
and has our sense of history been ruined or enhanced when we start picturing Road to Hill 30 or Call of Duty or whatever whilst watching a series about D-day + x ???
/confused/

I'd say enhanced, after playing the games i'm certainly more respectful of the abilities of and fear the appearance of a Tank could put into a battlefield when you're an Infantryman.
If a game makes you think of the actual conflict i doubt you're taking it lightly and the game has given you a greater appreciation of the situation those poor sods found themselves in.

TheSaint wrote:
I think that HBO's new show Rome is now the most expensive TV show ever made

That makes sense. Apparantly the sets they built for Rome are the largest ever constructed. It didn't do well enough for a second series, but they had invested so much money that they had to do one anyway, which is good.

However, it isn't quite up there with Band of Brothers. What is the name of the one they are currently filming about the pacific conflict in the same vein?

I am going to derail or rerail this thread and mention that I didn't realise that Damian Lewis was English when I initially watched the series. I think he did a pretty good American throughout the show.

Then I saw a bit of Warriors, and it took me a while to realise that the familiar-looking English lieutenant in it was actually Major Dick Winters.

jellyhead wrote:
The book for BoB and several of his others are good but they weren't meaty enough for me. They skimmed bits i wanted to have more detail but they are definately worth a read. I agree though that the series was a brilliant piece of work and even David Swi/Scwi/Ross from Friends didn't spoil it.

Really good show.

I thought Ross was actually quite good as Sobel (sp?). It was the Office space guy that kept killing the illusion for me. I kept expecting him to just stop going to the war cause he didn't feel like it.

Oh and Damian Lewis is excellent as Dick Winters. Just comes across a very capable and caring leader so far. Might give the book a go now when I am done with the series.